SOUTHFIRST is pleased to present “Murphy Beds,” an exhibition of new sculptures by Zak Kitnick on view from January 30 – March 1. In pursuit of sculptural simplicity, Kitnick’s subtractive methodology modifies aluminum fences, curtain rods, and blinds. The works have been built and unbuilt by assembling industrially made domestic wares.

In “I Love the Things I Hate When They’re Perfect,” black bars plot out an eight-by-eight foot square fence containing its strewn accents—fleur-de-lis finials rendered incapable of embellishing the bars in traditional, heraldic menace. Kitnick’s new, blunted form presents a tension in its lack of decorative function. Lofted eight feet high on the gallery’s longest wall are two fixtures whose dissected brass curtain rod and finials rest on the ground framing an apparition of an image or a hanging textile. Opposite this void, four Venetian blinds are suspended in a customized soffit, their slats running perpendicular as they are stacked outward from a brick wall. This redundancy and multiplicity obviates the need-based function of the blinds and turns notions of choice and option into an opaque grid. A hundred years after Adolf Loos wrote “Ornament and Crime,” Kitnick takes the bastardized detritus of form-follows-function industrial design and repurposes found, extraneous decorative elements, turning architectural precepts into sculptural propositions.